Kali Yuga Narcissism: A reverse Dunning–Kruger effect.

When I was a teenager, I believed I was genius beyond compare. It was due to a lifetime of not having a relationship with somebody as intelligent as myself. In this age, it's easy for people above average intelligence to over estimate themselves due to being surrounded by neurotic fools all day long.

Modern people are forced into institutions where all castes are together, so because of their numbers lower castes set the standards of social interaction and educational method to their level.

In a natural society familiy and farm takes the place of institution, and obviously there is not a problem of major imbalances of intelligence in the social interaction then.

Normally it takes a long time to realize the differences between your internal world and the external socially constructed world is caused by difference in intelligence. Personally I didn't really believe it even when they claimd I was intelligent on some tests in the military and on some science fair. In a young person the hidden ability has not yet unfolded, so it is often not apparent it is there---especially not to average people.

Besides, doesn´t 80 % of people claim to be above average intelligence? I think humans are hardcoded to bolster their ego with self flattery. But the Dunning-Krueger effect migth be the result of broken down selfconfidence via long times of not fitting in socially---and more importantly : from early childhood in a compleyely classless environment.

Your example is not typical, as many of high intelligence suffer from the Dunning-Krueger effect.

I think what I described and the Dunning-Krueger effect can co-exist. I usually think of the DK effect as understimating how many people don't know certain things a genius would find obvious or would think is common knowledge, like being shocked that most people aren't familiar with who Johannes Brahms is. You can think you are smarter than you are and still underestimate how many people don't possess certain knowledge.

I know what I said is kind of hard to understand, and might even sound contradictory. I'll try to rephrase it later after I think up a good way to word it.

By the way? What was up with all the Deutsch stuff? I don't speak German, if you thought that for some reason.

Surely no young teenagers have a volouminous knowledge as to certainly know all classical composers. Even the comprehension of many advanced subjects usually signifying intelligence have not developed fully yet.

If you were certain of your intelligence, most likely you had adults planting that knowledge into you because you excelled at the education.

I suppose most of you were like me, and didn't make efforts in school. Though even when I finially dropped totally out of that system, I used a lot of time on religion, occultism, metaphysics and art. Apparently just a particular and odd field of interessts, but behind the surface of many things is hidden causes. The D.K.-effect is that enigma of finding that causality.

When I was a teenager, I believed I was genius beyond compare. It was due to a lifetime of not having a relationship with somebody as intelligent as myself. In this age, it's easy for people above average intelligence to over estimate themselves due to being surrounded by neurotic fools all day long.

DK effect doesn't seem to describe what many people here are assuming it does. Skilled vs unskilled isn't the same as smart vs stupid. Most mental traps seem to apply regardless of intelligence level. it seems to be about the failings of partial understanding in areas where a lot of domain specific information is involved.

The comparative feeling of superiority people mentioned falls under a general form or Illusory superiority which is a parent set of DKE i guess.

it doesn't really make a difference but people seem to be parroting certain topics excessively.

Are you refering to the fact that I am willing to acknowledge my past arrogance as an example of the DK effect?

No, I was saying that your description of a reverse effect where someone considers themselves really able because of constant interaction with the less able is not the case. That is the actual Dunning-Kruger effect, with the explanation being a rationalization. Being intelligent does not make you immune from this failing of human nature. It is in matters of learned skills that require significant investment (where the results are non-obvious to the uninitiated) that you see this phenomenon most; and what you describe is, in my experience, a common reply of people who later had a realization about their true ability. Everyone was bad, so I thought I was good.

I'm not sure about the Dunning-Kruger effect but I noticed every second person has a massive chip on their shoulder nowadays. My trip to the city the other day was more intense than any drug trip. Young men posturing around with a look that says "stay the fuck away from me". Young women posturing around in clothes that only a pro would wear. Everyone covered in stupid drawings that have about the precision of a 3 yro practicing on his bedroom door.

I think the world is rotting so by comparison of exclusion I must be something special (yet in a healthy world I would be nothing).

Young men posturing around with a look that says "stay the fuck away from me".

Can you really blame them? Something tells me a lot of the posters here give that impression to people too, even if they don't really mean it. You guys probably know what I mean when I say that people are constantly coming up to me with "Is something wrong?", "Why do you look so pissed off all the time?" etc. etc. I think people confuse looking angry or upset with looking serious.

Endless repetition of something that is good would be ideal, while repetition of lies would be wrong to do.

The content of a healthy culture is a repetition of truths.

When you have some normal grey house cat and it dies, you get another one. Later you realize, that these two cats are so similar, that it is hard to distinguish the two as seperate infividuals.

In fact they are the same because their essence as beings are the same! Even down to how they move their paws.

It is similar with Homo sapiens, though they have a larger variation in the mental landscape. There exists both castes and races. It mean your true peers are spread more widely, unless you live in an orderede society like the ancient Indian.

Sharing a truth with someone who is like you is then helping yourself even if that person is at an early level of development---as his essence is the same or similar to yours.

"As the body dies the soul travels on. About this the sages have no doubt" it is said in the Upanishads.